This article was published in the blog of the Cayuga Collection Hotels and Lodges, us at Camino Travel applaud this initiative and hope that all our vendors (And clients) learn about it, as we do believe in stopping the usage of plastic straws as a simple, yet important way to help our planet:
By not using plastic straws for the past five years at the Cayuga Collection Hotels and Lodgesin Costa Rica and Nicaragua, we estimate that we have avoided trashing more than 1.5 Million plastic straws. And this is just our hotels. It does not take into consideration all the other hotels and restaurants in the country that were inspired by our initiative and got rid of their plastic straws as well.
A few years ago, Al Gore commented on them during his visit to Costa Rica exposing his work on clima change and promoting his “Inconvenient Truth”. He insisted in taking some home with him.
Hard to believe that we have been using “bamboo” straws at our hotels, resorts and ecolodges for over five years now. It all started with our frustration of not being able to recycle plastic straws and the fact they are a big factor in the pollution of our oceans and beaches. How to make the food and beverage experience more sustainable? And then Constantino Morales had a great idea.
Constantino worked as a gardener at one of the Cayuga managed hotels, the Harmony Hotel in Nosara. And once the issue of replacing the plastic straws was raised, he remembered a particularly narrow bamboo that was growing on his father’s farm. He wondered if he could use the bamboo instead of straws.
After various attempts he finally discovered the best way of producing his straws. The straws are hand made! They are sterilized in chlorine water, then in boiling water and then they are left out in the sun to dry. The final process is filing the ends of any unwanted splinters. Constantino started with ten straws, introducing his idea to the team at Cayuga. Obviously we loved the idea and went for it. Today that number has grown to more than thirty thousand straws being purchased by various hotels every month. He no longer works at our hotel is now a successful entrepreneur.
Using bamboo straws has a financial cost. About 10 cents per straw. Although, it costs us about $30,000 a year to provide this sustainability feature to our guests, we feel it is totally worth it and the right thing to do. Being sustainable does not always mean cost savings. Sometimes it is an investment. We offer the bamboo straws for purchase in our hotels gift shops. Or you can get them online at Amazon for about 71 cents per unit (not ours, this is another company).
Help us get rid of plastic straws. North Americans use about 500 million straws each day—about 1.6 per person—and these slippery little tubes of non-biodegradable plastic wreak havoc on the environment, slipping through the cracks of landfills and recycling processing plants to join the spiraling plastic garbage patches that choke our oceans and marine life. If your cocktail recipes require straws, consider those made from bamboo—then compost them!
Some of the Cayuga Collection of hotels are:
And actually you can visit them in our Eco Exclusive Experience Package
